Depressive self-presentation: Beyond self-handicapping.

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to examine the notion that depressives' responses would reflect a protective self-presentation style (Hill, Weary, & Williams, 1986), the underlying goal of which would be the avoidance of future performance demands and potential losses in self-esteem. In this study, depressed and nondepressed Ss were asked to perform a relatively simple visual-motor task. Half of the depressed and half of the nondepressed Ss were told that if they were successful at the task, they would be asked to perform a 2nd, similar task. The remaining Ss were given no such expectation of future performance. We predicted and found that depressed compared with nondepressed Ss strategically failed at the task when presented with the possibility of future performance and further losses in esteem. Moreover, this strategic failure was associated with some costs; depressed-future performance expectancy Ss experienced more discomfort or negative affect as a result of their performance. The relationship between this depressive self-presentation and self-handicapping strategies is discussed.

Is Cognitive Case Formulation Science or Science Fiction?

“…The specificity hypothesis argues that psychological disorders can be distinguished from one another according to distinct cognitive profiles, and indeed depression does appear to be characterized by negative cognitions when compared to cognition in other disorders (A. T. Beck, Steer, & Epstein, 1992;Clark, Beck, & Stewart, 1990;Sanz & Avia, 1994;Steer, Beck, Clark, & Beck, 1994). Also, there is good evidence for the selectiveprocessing hypothesis-depressed persons show a bias toward selecting mood-congruent, negative information from the environment-and many studies do suggest that depressed individuals find negative and positive interpretations of ambiguous stimuli equally acceptable, whereas nondepressed individuals prefer positive interpretations (e.g., Crowson & Cromwell, 1995, Dykman, Abramson, Alloy, & Hartlage, 1989Moretti et al, 1996;Weary & Williams, 1990).…”

Attributional biases in subclinical depression: A schema‐based account

“…At the first session participants completed the BDI; at the second session they completed the BDI and the ASQ-E. Participants completed the questionnaires anonymously to rule out possible self-presentational biases as an explanation for any depressed-non-depressed differences (see Weary & Williams, 1990). …”

Performance evaluation in subclinical depression: It looks like I did as poorly as I expected to

“…Participants completed the measures anonymously to rule out possible self-presentational biases as an explanation for any depressed-nondepressed differences (see Weary & Williams, 1990). The experimenter introduced the study as a project to develop tests of academic aptitude for stu-dents applying to highly competitive universities.…”